Mind your Ps and Qs ... because ...

During discussions in the classroom, which now seems like something that happened in my previous life and to which we might not return for a few more months, I would often follow up with a student's point with "because ..."

I want students to explain why X leads to Y, and not just assume that X is there or that Y will happen.  After all, the courses that I teach are not faith-based.  Sometimes, I would even tell them that very point--we do not simply believe but provide logical explanations.

If the context is climate change, then I even quote Katherine Hayhoe, who said it well that she does not believe in climate change, because climate change is not about belief, not about faith, but is about cause-effect.

Even though I walk around with a Rodney Dangerfield-like punchline, I know well that there are students who listen to me and think about what we discussed.   Like how a student wrote to me well after a term ended:

Hello Dr. K,
When we were in class last term talking about Climate Change you had mentioned Dr. Hayhoe and the quote she had about belief ...
I was wondering if you could please either send a link to her quote or just the quote itself.

If only a significant number of Americans behaved like that student!

Instead, there is a widespread denial of science that runs deep.  "[So many] of the same people who reject the scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change also question the evidence related to COVID-19."

Given how common it is, it is remarkable that philosophers have failed to give it a formal name. But I think we can view it as a variety of what sociologists call implicatory denial. I interpret implicatory denial as taking this form: If P, then Q. But I don't like Q! Therefore, P must be wrong. This is the logic (or illogic) that underlies most science rejection.

It is not that this crowd is completely against science.  They cheer, for instance, when the American military pinpoints a location and bombs the shit out of an area full of brown people.  They know well that it was science that helped create the bombs and the precision technology to target an area.  So, to call them science-deniers is perhaps incorrect.  They are against science only when they run into "If P, then Q. But I don't like Q! Therefore, P must be wrong."

I like this framework to understand those who oppose climate change, evolution, ...

But, to reject Q just because it is not what we prefer as an interpretation means that it is only a matter of time before we run into reality.  "When we reject evidence because we do not like what it implies, we put ourselves at risk."

The U.S. could have acted more quickly to contain COVID-19. If we had, we would have saved both lives and jobs. But facts have an inconvenient habit of getting in the way of our desires. Sooner or later, denial crashes on the rocks of reality. The only question is whether it crashes before or after we get out of the way.

We are paying for the inaction due to denial all through February.  I cannot wait for President Joe Biden to throw out the regime of "alternative facts" and get us on to a path of ""If P, then Q" and take care of the Ps and Qs.